Tired and happy. Kind of like fat and happy, but not.

We were unsuccessful picking up our psych evaluations tonight, but have made arrangements to do it tomorrow, BUT...as I was heading to bed tonight I saw that our case worker Josh sent me a copy of our updated home study late tonight for me to review and make changes to.  I spent the last 90 minutes very thoroughly going through it and found 15 things that needed to be changed/updated.  So, I typed all of those up and sent them off to him!  Hopefully he's able to offer pretty quick turnaround time on that so we can get that puppy notarized and mail of our USCIS application!

Woot woot!

Coming along

Our psych evaluations are prepared and notarized!  We just need to pick them up.

Also, my friend is able to get their letter of recommendation notarized today and hopefully send off to state authentication.

Lastly, today I sent a $400 check to WIAA ahead of us scanning them all our dossier documents.  That way when we scan them the documents they'll already have the check to move forward with translating it! Chareyl told me that we can go ahead and scan everything except the letter of recommendation and we can get the translation process started while we wait for that.

Slowly, but surely!

Anxious to wait

The content in my updates isn't very meaty, but I'm just so anxious and need to be able to "talk" about this somewhere.  We obviously still have a very long journey ahead of us, I'm just anxious to get these last few steps done so we can start really waiting.  Yup.  It's the hurry up and wait stage for sure.

On Friday we did get a copy of our insurance letter confirming coverage details.  I was able to pass that on to our case worker, so he now has everything he needs to finish writing up our home study update!  Also, I failed to mention that our government approved funding for homeland security, so once we have a finalized copy of our home study and are able to submit our application, there won't be a big wait for our paperwork as more pressing matters are caught up on from a closure.  So that's good.

So, while we wait on our home study to submit USCIS paperwork the only documents we're still waiting on to finish our dossier are the psychological evaluation and one last letter of recommendation.  As soon as those are in we will get our whole dossier packet authenticated and translated!  Woot woot!

One last thing I remembered today when I was thinking about my number nerdy-ness about the 12th (like I mentioned in my last post).  The day the disastrous earthquake hit Haiti was January 12, 2010. Haiti was already the poorest country in the Western hemisphere before the earthquake, and the death and destruction that earthquake caused really put Haiti in ruins.  Literally.  When I hear people talk about Haiti it is used as a modern time marker (before the earthquake or after the earthquake).  Any country or city would still be struggling 5 years after a disaster of that magnitude, but a country that was already so destitute has far less means and infrastructure to heal itself.

Anyway!  I remember thinking it was interesting that our home study visit was on the 5 year anniversary of the earthquake, but don't know whether or not I wrote anything down here about it or not.  It's just yet another notable event that happened on the 12th.

Praying for that home study update to come through today or tomorrow...

It's my blog and I'll blab if I want to, blab if I want to...

I feel almost apologetic when I am needing to purge myself of the recent paper chase updates on this blog. Then I remember that it is my blog.  And as double reaffirmation (does that equal four?), this blog hasn't even been public anymore for nearly a couple months.  By the time I re-publish this blog nobody will even see this post...SO!  I will ramble here as opposed to some poor soul who has the unfortunate kindness to ask how the adoption is coming.

I don't have a TON to tell since two days ago, but we get our IBESR letter notarized as well as getting our judicial POA re-notarized yesterday!  One of my friends also got her letter of recommendation notarized and in to us yesterday!  Now today Mark's authenticated birth certificate came in the mail and I got a call from our insurance company saying our letter of coverage was "approved" and ready to email out to us.  Of course that was this morning and I haven't gotten it yet, but I'm hopeful to see it by the end of the day.  That insurance letter is the last thing we need before our home study can be finalized, so that's pretty exciting!

Outside of immigration stuff (which is filled out with a cashiers check attached and already in an addressed envelope...just waiting for our home study) - other than that, the only thing we are waiting on are our psych evaluations and our last notarized (and in this case also authenticated) letter of recommendation to arrive in the mail!  That's it!  Then we can get our entire dossier authenticated and translated!  Wahoo!  I'm seeing the light at the end of this paper chase tunnel.

This is a little bit number nerdy, but I was hoping we could have everything done by a week from today.  March 12th.  We found out that our Ethiopian adoption was falling through on November 12th.  After a month of intense research and prayer we turned in our first application to adopt from Haiti with WIAA on December 12th. The time between November and December 12th felt a lot longer than a month because it was intense and emotional.  Lots of lost sleep.  But it was only one month.  And while the last (nearly) three months has felt a little bit longer also because we've intensely worked on getting all our paperwork done...I'm really pleased with the pace.  Getting all our home study and dossier documents gathered and completed in two months is fantastic.  Oh!  And our home study visit with our caseworker happened on January 12th!

So, here's my hope (we'll see what happens):  If we can have our updated home study reviewed and finalized, immigration paperwork submitted, dossier approved by Wasatch and authenticated and sent off to be translated by one week from today...that would be awesome.

Here's to hoping.

A few little baby document steps

It's only been a week since my last update, but I've been having one of those "urgent" weeks where I'm feeling a big push to wrap things up.  Those super motivated pushes have come a small handful of times throughout this process with both Ethiopia and Haiti.  I tend to believe that there is a reason for when those urgent pushes come.  Anyway, of course this one came at a time where I've been sick so that's been a bit of a bummer, but we've still gotten some things done since last week:

• Mark's medical letter got finished and notarized (a nice lady in another office in his building that's a notary offered to go notarize it at Mark's doctor's office).
• Reciprocal power of attorney letters typed up and notarized.
• Judicial power of attorney letters typed up and notarized...except I did something wrong on it, so we will amend the date and try again tomorrow when the notary is working that has the expiration date that we want.
• We gave the last of the information we need to get our psychological evaluation letters written
• Followed up on 2 remaining letters of recommendation that friends have written but need to have notarized.
• Looked up information on how to authenticate a document originating in Michigan and sent appropriate envelopes and checks off for that (to have a letter of recommendation authenticated).
• Wrote our IBESR letter (about ourselves and officially requesting IBESR to adopt a child from their country).
• Followed up TWICE more on our insurance company getting us the letter to verify coverage for our future child (we still don't have it).  I got bounced around on hold each time for more than a half an hour each.  So frustrating.
• I hand delivered all our documents except the aforementioned insurance letter (which I'll take in as soon as I get it) to our agency so our case worker can start completing our home study amendment.  We want to get a jump start on that so we are able to submit our immigration pre-approval paperwork (it has to have a copy of the home study submitted with it).
• I filled out our I 800a application (for immigration) so when our home study is done we are ready to quickly mail it off.

Also!  When I went in to our agency office to deliver our home study documents I was able to meet Chareyl in person.  I've talked to her several times over the phone and emailed with her many more, but I hadn't met her in person.  Just talking to her was such a solidifying re-affirmation that we chose the right agency to guide us through this journey to adopt from Haiti.  I am so impressed with her knowledge of Haiti and the adoption process there, her insight, and just in her as a person in general.  While I know that even the most knowledgable, experienced person on Haitian adoptions can't insulate us from the unpredictability of this process - I do feel like we have the right person at our side to guide us through this journey.  And I'm so grateful for that!


My newest concern is...the likelihood that Homeland Security will be closing for a period of time soon due to lack of funding from gridlock in congress on political issues.  And that is who we send our paperwork to for immigration pre-approval.  Just one more thing you can't anticipate or do anything about I guess, but grrr...

In good news I found out that while we do have to wait for our finalized home study to submit our application to immigration...we don't have to have already attended our fingerprint appointment that they'll assign us and have our favorable determination letter in hand before starting to process our dossier!  That could save us a couple of months on our timeline!  We can be getting our dossier authenticated and translated while we wait for USCIS to process our application and so it's ready to go when we get our FDL.  That was great news!  So, here's to hoping we get that home study wrapped up quickly.

Paper chase update

Nothing that's huge news to tell, but I figured that I'd update anyway.  We're plugging away at all the very exciting (sarcasm) details involved with the paper process:

• 8 passport photos each - check.
• Employment and income verification letter received and notarized - check.
• Bank letter (notarized) with 3 months of statements - check.
• Labs drawn for HIV, hepatitis & syphillis - check.
• Mark's birth certificate mailed back to CA for authentication - check.
• Additional birth certificates ordered - check.
• Marriage license found - check.
• Photos of home and family printed, assembled onto pages, and color copied - check.
• Copies done of passports and drivers licenses - check.
• Mobile notary with acceptable expiration found (that wasn't easy), hired, and met at my doctor's office to notarize her signature with her letter clearing my health - check.
• TB test documented for Mark and performed for me - check.
• Legal information researched, immigration office called to consult with, and information gathered to decide on which USCIS paperwork to use for our situation - check.
• Doctor letters verifying each of our kids' health received - check.
• Letters of recommendation from 4 families requested - check.
• Letter requested from health insurance company verifying that our future child will have coverage immediately upon us taking custody (I had to be pushy/insistent that a document of credible coverage wasn't sufficient).  It has taken weeks to get the letter written and is currently "under review" before it can be sent out to us - almost a check.
• Last 3 years of taxes copied - check.
• Notarized local police clearance - check.
• Judicial and reciprocal power of attorney letters typed, but not yet notarized.

So!  As you can see we've been busy trying to attack this paperwork.  Mark took a fasting blood test today that his doctor required in conjunction with his physical that is scheduled this week.  Mark found a notary in his office building that is willing to come to his doctor appointment to notarize his doctor's signature on his medical letter Friday also.  Once that is done and we finally receive the letter from our health insurance company then our home study documents will be complete and our case worker can finish writing up our home study!

Once our home study is complete we can turn in our I-800a application to immigration.  They will send us an assigned date for more fingerprinting and once that is done we'll wait on their favorable determination letter.  That is what will be holding up our dossier at that point since we are close to having all the other documents that we need for that to be complete.

Once our dossier is complete it will have to be authenticated and translated before it can be sent to Haiti.  So that's where we are in the process!  We're definitely in the hurry up and wait part of the adoption process.  We feel like we're frantically hurrying to get together all the paperwork we need...so that we can start waiting :)

Pain in the butt, BUT...

Some days I'm less enthused than others about having to start this paper chase part of the process over again.  New background checks (no we didn't become criminals in the last 2 years).  Asking the same people to write another letter of recommendation.  Getting new physicals and letters from employers.  Notarizing every document under the sun etc, etc...

You get the idea.  It's a bit tedious.  Then there's that BUT...

BUT I still feel like there has been His hand in the timing of things.  And here is yet another way I've seen that:

When we found out that our adoption journey with Ethiopia could no longer continue and decided that adopting from Haiti was the right thing for our family...the next step was choosing an agency.  After researching online and communicating with several families who had adopted or were in the adoption process from Haiti, I felt like Diana Boni from ABI was who I wanted to facilitate our adoption.  Unfortunately when I contacted them I found out that they had no more openings for children in our age parameters.  We also contacted another agency that several families said good things about and they were very helpful and quick about getting back to us.  We were tempted to just jump on board and get going, but I was really hesitant for some reason.  One thing that concerned me was the large number of families this agency had in process, but they assured me that there are more children in Haiti in need than there are families looking to adopt.  Based on our prior experience being at the end of a large program list with Ethiopia, I was still nervous about this.

As I continued researching and interviewing people I began to look into WIAA (who happened to be our in state agency that completed our home study for our Ethiopian adoption) and was interested, but hesitant based on the lack of families I was able to talk to who had used them.  We spent a few weeks researching (made some great connections including one from someone I know well!) and got good information.  I even got the guts to ask Diana Boni what agencies she recommended since we couldn't use them.  She gave me a list of 4 agencies she deems as the most ethical and experienced.  The agency I mentioned earlier was not on that list, and WIAA was.  After contacting a list of references, lot of thought and prayer we decided to move forward with WIAA.  They accepted our application and we contracted with them.  I couldn't be more excited about working with Wasatch and particularly Chareyl Moyes who heads up the Haiti program.  Her years of extensive knowledge and experience working in Haiti more than makes up for her self-admitted lacking of "fluffy email updates" to families during the waiting process.

Now!  Here's the point I was getting to...just days after we contracted with WIAA we find out that new quotas being enforced on the Haiti side of things...only 12 dossiers per agency may be submitted per year, and only 5 additional for special needs cases (it used to be more of a suggested quota and then unlimited additional applications for special needs).  This put the larger agencies I mentioned in a place where they have had to stop accepting applications.  ABI has enough families that their dossier quota is filled through the end of 2016 and the other agency I mentioned who had an even larger number of families in process is now going to have to hold many of their families dossiers for a significant length of time before they can even submit them to Haiti and begin their wait.  I am grateful that we went with the agency we did.  Not only did I feel like they will provide an ethical adoption, and that they have a lot of years of experience in Haiti...but because they keep their program smaller we won't run into hold ups on the U.S. side of thing before we even enter the chaos of the Haiti side of things.  I feel for these families I'm hearing from on message boards that are now trying to decide whether to switch agencies or wait out the long additional wait before they can submit to Haiti and even start the "real" wait.

So!  I wrote all of that out for myself.  Basically all that I'm saying is that yes it's a pain to start this paper chase over, but I still feel like we've been blessed.  I feel like the Lord helped guide us where we are through our experiences with our failed adoption and that we are on track now.  A long road still ahead, but on track.  And that feels good.